


illuminating

by page_of_wands



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Lack of Communication, M/M, Married Drarry, Nightmares, One Shot, Vernon Dursley Dies, although are they really aged up if they're canonically adults at this point?, and draco provides scathing commentary, and then harry revisits no. 4 privet drive, basically they're adults with an established relationship ok, dudley isn't a total asshole, it's cute but not earth-shattering, lol I love that that's a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 18:58:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/page_of_wands/pseuds/page_of_wands
Summary: draco learns about harry's childhood, and then they go to vernon's wake





	illuminating

**Author's Note:**

> 1) if I got any details wrong, it's because I haven't read the books in ages, ok  
2) I'm not british, so if any of the lingo is wrong, feel free to let me know but please be kind about it  
3) the most noteworthy thing about this fic is the fact that I actually finished it; I'm not terribly proud of the content, but I'm Very proud of its existence as a completed fic :)

“Please close the door behind you,” Hermione instructed, resting her quill in an inkwell and shuffling the papers on her desk. The secretary behind Draco obediently left the room. Draco didn’t particularly appreciate the feeling of being treated as a schoolboy sent to the headmaster’s office, but after being on friendly terms with Hermione for several years—or if not friendly, at least civil—he supposed he could let the slight to his pride slide.

“I’m so glad you could take the time out of your busy schedule to talk with me,” he commented snidely; what could he say, old habits died hard.

“Listen, Draco, I’m doing you a favor by even taking this meeting, so you can drop the attitude.” It was the same tone of voice he’d heard Hermione use with her child (or husband, when the situation called for it) when they misbehaved, and Draco had to admit, it was arresting to have it directed at him for a change.

He waved an idle hand in the air, as if to say, _by all means_. Hermione leaned back in her chair, frowning.

“I take it Harry hasn’t brought up the subject of his past at all?” she asked.

“Clearly,” Draco replied tersely, “or else I wouldn’t be here, begging for scraps of information about my own fiancé from his childhood friend.” She fixed him with a glare, and he tilted his head apologetically.

“Technically this is going behind his back,” she said icily; “remind me why I’m doing this?”

“Because you want Harry to have a healthy relationship that doesn’t involve keeping secrets?” Draco tried. She “hmm”ed disbelievingly. Not because what he’d said was false, Draco suspected, but because she realized that their apparent lack of communication didn’t necessarily represent a healthy relationship. “Because I can convince my mother to divert funds to your latest bleeding heart project?” he tried again.

When she remained unconvinced, he sighed. “Look, Hermione, Harry’s been talking in his sleep for the past three days. The last time he did that, it was the night before the dedication ceremony of the war memorial.” In one of the courtyards on the grounds of Hogwarts, there was a wall of stone where the names of everyone who died in the war (or at least as many as could be accounted for) were etched permanently. He and Harry had been in the front row the day it was revealed to the public. “I’ve asked him about it, but he won’t tell me anything. How am I supposed to help him when I don’t even know what it’s about?”

Desperation must have leaked into his voice at this point, or maybe she saw it in his face, because he could see the adamant wall in Hermione’s eyes finally start to give way.

“What kinds of things has he been saying?” she relented.

“The word _freak_ shows up a lot,” Draco listed dispassionately. “Sometimes he talks about how those letters belong to him?” The worst ones, the ones he wasn’t quite willing share with Hermione, were when Harry promised to disappear; when he swore to pretend like he didn’t even exist. Draco didn’t know who or what he was pleading with, but whatever it was, he never wanted Harry to have to deal with it again, in reality or in his nightmares.

Hermione nodded. “I don’t know a lot about Harry’s childhood,” she admitted. “He never liked talking about it; but from what his letters used to be like, and what Ron’s told me, that sounds about right. I know one summer he stopped responding to all of our letters. That might be what he’s talking about?” she suggested. “Anyway, Ron ended up stealing this flying car from his dad, and Fred and George drove to Harry’s address to pick him up. He said… When they got there, they had to pry bars off his window.” Draco blinked at her.

“You must be kidding,” he said tightly. Never mind whatever a car was—they actually screwed bars to the front of his bedroom window? “No self-respecting wizard would deface their house like that, not when they can just cast a bubble charm. Is that why he couldn’t send letters—because his owl couldn’t get out of the fucking house?” he demanded crossly.

“Draco—” Hermione said haltingly. “Harry was raised by muggles.” Draco gaped at her.

“How in Merlin’s bloody pants did he survive Voldemort as an infant when he wasn’t even raised around magic?” he protested.

“Well, I imagine at that point he was still living with his parents,” Hermione said in a manner that said that should have been quite obvious. “And all _that_—” _that _referring to Harry’s scar “—was because of his mum; tricky stuff, love. Apparently when she died to protect him, she cast a protective charm that repelled even the killing curse,” she explained. “It’s really quite fascinating: most books don’t even really touch on it, which is why Voldemort wouldn’t have been expecting it.”

“Save the bloody charms lesson,” Draco snapped. “You’re telling me Harry was raised by a bunch of dimwitted muggles that put bars over his window?” Suddenly the word _freak_ made an awful sort of sense. “What else do you know?”

“Well, it was his aunt and uncle that raised him,” she replied. “He had a cousin that he talked about quite a bit—some bloke named Dudley.” Draco filed that name away for later. “I got the impression Harry got quite a bit of his hand-me-downs. Either that or they were dreadfully skilled at buying him clothes a few sizes too big,” she frowned.

Draco thought back to when he had first met Harry, on that fateful day outside the Great Hall when he first extended the offer of friendship. He remember immediately sizing Harry up, to compare himself against: they were evenly matched in height, Harry glaring at him through slightly crooked glasses, and though the robes disguised the rest of his body, Draco remembered thinking that Harry had a look of gauntness about him. _An easy target for Goyle, _he had assumed.

“What else?”

“…they never sent him any Christmas presents. Well, unless you count a toothpick, a single tissue, and a 50-pence piece.” Hermione tapped her chin. “And he always stayed at Hogwarts during break, whenever he got the chance.”

Draco was beginning to form an image of what Harry’s childhood might have looked like, and it wasn’t a cheerful one. “Well, Hermione,” he said as he stood up, “this has been most enlightening.”

“Draco,” Hermione called before he reached the door, and he turned around. “This really is something you should ask Harry about, himself,” she advised.

“Oh, believe me, I intend to.” Draco smiled, but it wasn’t a happy sort of smile. “Thank you,” he said, and actually meant it.

Hermione picked up her quill from the inkwell. “I’ll be expecting your contribution to the Protective Association for Centaur Territory in the coming days,” was her only reply, but he could have sworn the corner of her mouth had turned up.

-

Draco was on the couch when Harry got home, clutching a mug of tea and staring into the fire. Usually he didn’t wait up for Harry, since his shift had a tendency to run late, but he couldn’t get the image of a young Harry clinging to prison bars, swearing to disappear from existence if only he could figure out how, out of his head. It made his heart hurt. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway, so he figured he’d be better off in the living room, where he could latch on to Harry as soon as he got home, instead of waiting restlessly in bed.

It was close to midnight when Harry apparated into the kitchen. He was in the process of putting his coat away when he saw Draco and stopped, making a detour to where he sat.

“Hullo, love,” he murmured, stooping down to kiss his forehead in a disgustingly domestic way that made Draco’s throat close up. “What’re you lying in wait for?”

“Lying in wait?” Draco echoed. “You make it sound like I’m going to attack you.” He levitated his now-empty mug to the sink to be dealt with in the morning while Harry hung up his coat and took off his shoes the muggle way. Draco watched him with fond eyes.

“Aren’t you?” Harry teased. Draco got up and wrapped his arms around him.

“Not at all,” he said into Harry’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

The same, soft treatment lasted throughout the weekend. Harry, used to bickering and sharp commentary from his fiancé, was perplexed to say the least. The Daily Prophet, of all things, turned out to be the last straw.

“That’s it—what’s wrong with you?” Harry demanded Sunday morning.

“I’m sorry?” Draco raised an eyebrow.

“Today’s headline is about Rhea Reynolds, that potioneer you’ve been following, and you didn’t even give it a glance,” Harry jabbed the offending newspaper with his index finger.

“Oh, did she finally iron out the side effects of—” he perked up.

“Draco,” Harry interrupted. “You’ve been acting weird all week. What is it?”

Draco sighed through his nose; apparently they were doing this now. “I’ve told you about my childhood, right?” he asked impatiently. “About my father, my mother, the house-elves—the good and the bad alike.”

“…yeah?” Harry’s brow furrowed with confusion. “What does that have to do with—?”

“So imagine my surprise,” Draco carried on, “when you start talking in your sleep about being a _freak_, and wanting to _disappear_, and I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re on about.” Harry’s mouth opened in a silent, _oh_.

“If it was bothering you, I could have just cast a silencing charm before going to bed or something,” he muttered.

“No, that’s not—I never want to _silence_ you, Harry,” Draco said, frustrated. “I want to know what this is all about, and what I can do about it, and why you bloody well haven’t been talking to me about it.”

“What do you want to hear?” Harry demanded, running a hand through his hair. “That the reason I can’t use the Floo is because I lived in a cupboard for the first eleven years of my life and get claustrophobic sometimes? That the reason I can’t stand soup is because one summer, that’s all they would feed me through a flap at the bottom of my door?”

“_Yes!_”

“Draco, it’s all pathetic!” Harry cried. “Every single sad story. I just want to forget it all ever happened and get on with my life.”

“That’s not how this_ works_,” Draco insisted. “We’re in a relationship, which means we talk about our feelings and rubbish, not bottle it all up.” Harry scrubbed at his eyes. “Why now?” Draco asked, switching tactics. “You’ve never had these sort of dreams before, until now. What changed?”

Harry stood up, and for a split second, Draco was sure he was going to walk out of the house. He’d just get up and leave, and spend the day on Weasley’s couch or something, and Draco would feel like a rotten bag of shite all day.

But he didn’t leave. He opened a drawer next to the fridge, then came back and dropped an opened letter in front of Draco’s plate. Draco picked it up and skimmed over the contents of the envelope: an invitation to the funeral of some Vernon Dursley. The outside of the envelope said the sender was Dudley Dursley.

_Dudley._

“Your uncle,” Draco guessed. Harry, who picked disinterestedly at his now-cold breakfast, nodded.

“Petunia will be there,” he said dully. “So will Dudley, and his wife, I expect. He sent me a wedding invitation ages ago. I haven’t seen any of them since before the war.”

_Ah._ Draco was no stranger to awkward family relations.

“You could’ve _told_ me,” Draco murmured.

“When I’m with you, I’m not a war hero or an orphan,” Harry explained: “I feel _normal_. I didn’t want…” He sighed. “I don’t know. I just didn’t want to change that.”

“You didn’t want pity,” Draco said, and when Harry glanced up to gauge his expression, it was mixed and impossible to read. “Harry,” Draco shook his head, “when have I _ever_ been partial to pity?”

-

In the end, Harry did decide to go to Vernon’s wake. There was a lot of fidgeting and going back and forth over the matter, but Draco thought it was good that he was going. Not only would he get some closure (presumably), but it would give Draco the chance to see (read: judge) the place where Harry grew up and meet some of the more influential people from his childhood. Additionally, he quite liked the idea of being shown off as Harry’s future husband.

Seeing as looking good is a prerequisite to being show-off material, Draco frequently demanded, “What does one wear to a wake?” Harry had already informed him multiple times that this would be a strictly muggle function, no magic allowed, and therefore he deemed a change in attire to be necessary.

“Well, usually you wear all black to a funeral,” Harry advised, “though the card said _wake_, not _funeral_. Is there any difference?”

“How should I know?” he shot back. Draco knew a great deal about wizarding funerals, having attended so many after the war; muggle funerals, on the other hand, were a subject in which he sorely lacked experience.

(A quick firecall with Hermione confirmed that it was perfectly acceptable to wear all black to a wake.)

Harry, himself, wore a forest green sweater with the collars of a polo folded neatly over the neck. Draco thought it a subtle statement that he was doing well for himself, not terrible grieved by his uncle’s death, from the lack of black, but still dressed up enough to not be completely disregarding the dress code.

“What do you think?” Harry asked, eyes flying between the mirror and Draco, looking for approval. Draco couldn’t blame him; this would be the first time in at least ten years that he’d be seeing his relatives.

“I think you look stunning,” he said easily, and brushed a kiss over Harry’s cheekbone. “The most stunning thing in the room—except for me, of course.”

Harry’s lips curved upwards into a smile. “Of course,” he echoed, and turned to kiss Draco properly on the lips.

Draco indulged him for a moment, and then broke off to say, “Don’t think you’re backing out now, Potter. We’re arriving five minutes late and not a second past that.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he demurred. “Fashionably late as always?”

“Well, we want to give all the guests a chance to arrive before our own entrance, don’t we?”

“Why, so as many eyes as possible will be on us?” Harry raised a wary eyebrow.

“Exactly.” Draco wrapped his arms around Harry and put his hands in his front pockets, lightly tracing his inner thigh with his fingertips. “I want everyone looking at us the moment we step through the doors, and wondering where the _hell_ these magnificent two blokes came from,” he murmured, teeth pulling at Harry’s ear lobe.

Harry shivered. “You realize they’re just going to think we’re a couple of poufs?”

“So what?” Draco returned. “Who cares what a bunch of bloody muggles think?”

-

They walked through the door of number 4 Privet Drive exactly five minutes past the time on the invitation and not a second past. Their entrance was rather less glorious than Draco had envisioned, seeing as the majority of the guests were milling about the living room instead of the entry hall.

The shock on the face of the ghastly, hunched woman who answered the door was clearly evident. “Harry,” she’d gasped, taking an immediate step backwards, further into the safety of her home and away from whatever danger they presented. “How—why—how did you—”

“I invited him, Mum,” a towering man interrupted from just around the corner. He was young, much younger than his mother appeared to be, and sported an already impressive potbelly for his age. “Hullo, Harry,” he nodded civilly, though his eyes still flickered with apprehension.

Harry gave him a slight nod, expression blank. “Dudley,” he said in acknowledgement. He turned to the woman and said, “Good afternoon, Aunt Petunia.” His tone was flat; he was every inch the unimpressed and uncaring visitor, and Draco was proud.

As they moved into the living room, Draco took the opportunity to look about Harry’s childhood home. The hall was cramped, the carpeting over the stairs worn near threadbare from no doubt years of abuse under the feet of Dudley and his assumedly also obese father. The wallpaper was hideous. A flash of light caught his eye, a brass deadlock glinting in the light on the cupboard under the stairs, and he very vividly remembered Harry mentioning claustrophobia.

It wasn’t even tall enough for a proper broomstick to stand upwards.

When he looked at Harry, his eyes were trained straight ahead. Draco reached for his hand and squeezed it gently.

When they finally reached the living room, Draco was taken aback by the sea of beige, just-past-middle-aged men and their tasteful pearl-and-lace wives. A glance at the photos on the mantel confirmed that Vernon was an exact replica of these men, save the exceptional mustache. (It didn’t escape Draco’s notice that none of these photos included Harry.)

Harry was caught up in a wave of memories, tethered only by Draco’s hand gripping his. A war had happened, people had lived and died, children were born and couples married, and this house had stayed exactly the same: the perfect picture of a happy, middle-class, white, suburban family, who could proudly say that they were perfectly normal.

There was the window he had hidden under, the summer before fourth year. There was the fireplace in which Vernon had burned his earliest letters from Hogwarts. There was that blasted television set; he’d bet good galleons on the fact that if he turned it on right now it would still be set to the news channel.

There, just around the corner, was where Dobby had stood, when he’d magicked Petunia’s treasured cake straight into the face of Mrs. Whatever-Her-Name-Was. That spot by the rug was where Harry had stood the night his howler from the ministry expelled him for using underage magic. He could still see Mad-Eye and Tonks rushing through the hall to spirit him away to Grimmauld Place for the rest of the summer.

“Harry,” Draco said softly, tugging on his hand and pulling him back to the present. “Talk to me.”

“Hmm?” Harry hummed, eyes clearing. Draco’s face was intently searching his, concern rising just under the surface. “I’m fine, love,” he reassured him. “It’s just…a lot at once. Nothing’s changed.”

Draco’s eyes didn’t leave his. “We can leave whenever you want.” Harry shook his head.

“Not yet. There are some other things I want to see before we go.”

He turned and Draco followed him out the door and up the stairs; if Petunia or Dudley saw them leave, they didn’t stop them.

The second floor proved to display more of the same atrocious, floral wallpaper, and picture frame after picture frame lined up, tracing Dudley’s growth.

“Are these people really related to you?” Draco sniffed snidely. “They don’t look anything like you.”

“I think everyone rather appreciates that,” Harry said with good humor.

“Where were you?” Harry turned to look questioningly at him. “When all of these pictures were being taken,” he clarified.

“Well, most of them were taken by the school,” Harry explained. “I don’t believe they ever bothered to buy mine. The others were by an independent photographer, so I was probably at Mrs. Finch’s then.”

“Mrs. who?”

“The lady who lived across the street.” Harry scowled. “I spent a good many years thinking she just had a terrible love for cats and no baking skill to speak of. As it turns out, she was a squib placed there specifically by Dumbledore to look out for me. A fat load of help that was,” he muttered under his breath. Draco knew very well what Harry thought of Dumbledore.

“Here it is,” Harry said suddenly, stopping in front of a closed door. “The second bedroom, originally Dudley’s toy room and then my bedroom, after my magic gave them a right good scare.” He stood there for a moment.

“Well?” Draco demanded. “Are we going inside or aren’t we?”

“I’m not quite sure what to expect,” Harry admitted. “The last time I saw it…well, I was expecting it to be the last time I saw it.”

He still made no move to open the door, and Draco gave an overdramatic sigh designed to break the silence. “Very well then, if I must,” he said, and pushed the door open for him.

The room was completely empty.

Harry walked inside, slowly, twisting around once he was standing the middle of the room to get a full view of the room. When he was done, he moved to the windows, pushing the curtains aside and gazing at the front lawn. _The bars_, Draco thought.

“Well this is rather disappointing,” Draco commented.

“Mum’s planning on moving soon,” a deep voice said from the doorway. They both whirled around to see Dudley leaning against the doorframe. “Now that Dad’s dead,” Dudley continued. “She wants to be closer to—well, Marigold’s expecting.” They both blinked at him. “My wife,” he explained.

“I see you’re continuing the flower line,” Draco smirked. “Lily, Petunia, Marigold—tell me, what are the top baby names? Rose, maybe?”

“Draco Lucius Malfoy, you are hardly one to talk about family names,” Harry muttered. “Besides, one of your best friends is named Pansy.”

“Yes, well, her mother wasn’t very well named _Daisy_,” he retorted. Harry coughed a laugh, glancing to Dudley as if remembering he was there.

“I suppose she wants to live closer to her grandchildren, then?” he asked, for sake of conversation and politeness.

“Yeah.” Dudley shuffled his feet, uncharacteristically hesitant, and Harry watched the movement. “She doesn’t—that is, I thought you’d like to know—”

“Spit it out,” Draco prompted bemusedly, and Dudley glared at him. _That’s the Big D I remember_, Harry thought.

“Marigold’s grandfather was a squid,” he announced.

“A what?” Harry didn’t have to look to see that Draco’s eyes were glittering with mirth.

“He isn’t—he doesn’t have any…” Dudley checked over his shoulder and whispered, “_magic_.”

“A _squib_,” said Harry in realization.

“Yeah that.”

Draco asked something, probably with a derogatory twist, but the wheels in Harry’s mind were spinning. Lily had been a muggle-born, a random spark of magic in an otherwise purely muggle family, so the possibility of that being passed onto her nephew’s child was unlikely but not impossible; Marigold’s family obviously had a history with magic, but if she and her parents were all muggles, it wasn’t terribly likely that trait would pass on, especially given that both she and Dudley were muggles themselves.

But it could happen. After all, witches and wizards had come from far less; Lily didn’t have any genetic magic at all, or at least nothing half as recent as Dudley’s future offspring would.

Harry laid a stilling hand on Draco’s arm. “If you ever need anything,” he said to Dudley, “you know where to find us.” He tugged on Draco’s arm and added, “Come on; let’s go home.”

Dudley backed out of the doorway to let them through. “Thanks, Harry. And, uh…good luck with that one.” He gestured to Draco, who raised an incredulous eyebrow.

Harry smiled bitterly. It wasn’t anything close to an apology for a childhood’s worth of torment, nor did it particularly speak well of his husband, but… Dudley was wishing him well, and Harry guessed that was the closest thing he was going to get.

“Bye, Dudley,” he finally answered. “Let me know what you end up naming the kid.”

The journey out of the house passed by faster than Harry had expected. Petunia was in the kitchen, and they didn’t go out of their way to stop in to say goodbye. The squeaky bottom step made hardly any noise at all over the din of speaking from the living rom, and hardly anyone even looked up as they passed by. Before he knew it, the front door was closing behind him, and then it was just him and Draco, standing alone on the front step.

“Did you hear what name they’re thinking about?” Draco asked giddily.

“No, what?”

“_Violet._” The word was barely out of his mouth before he burst into peals of laughter, and Harry only had to look at him before he was laughing, too.

-

They were curled up on the couch: Draco was resting his chin atop Harry’s head, and Harry was staring blankly ahead, as if he’d forgotten he was holding a very full, steaming mug of tea.

“What’re you thinking about?” Harry felt the hum from Draco’s chest against his back.

“What if Violet has magic?” Harry answered without preamble. Draco rolled his eyes above Harry’s head.

“Then she has magic,” he replied disinterestedly. “So what. Hundreds of magical children are born to muggle families every day.”

“What if she blows up their house?”

“They probably deserve it,” Draco rebuffed. “And then both them and Petunia will likely be moving again.” Harry hummed in agreement.

“I can’t believe she’s moving,” he said suddenly. “I’m never going to be in that house again.”

“Fucking finally,” Draco muttered. “I hope the next owners tear that place apart. Did you see how outdated it was? Simply atrocious.” There was a moment, and Harry sipped his tea, thinking that was it. Then Draco said, “Who the _fuck_ still has green carpeting?”

“_That’s_ what you’re most upset about?” Harry laughed. “The _carpeting_?”

“And the wallpaper, of course,” he sniffed. “Ugh, and that _couch—_”

“Draco, I think you missed your calling as an interior decorator.”

“What, you think it takes _talent_ to be able to see that gingham armchairs belong in one place and one place only and that place is the rubbish?” Draco demanded. “_Anyone_ can see that…”

They continued to bicker, discussing the morals of doilies on end tables and the concept of plaid, and just outside it started to rain. Eventually they went to bed, and despite the eventful day, Harry slept through the night without a hint of a nightmare in sight.


End file.
